Solar Ear

Our mission is to help a child with a hearing loss, get proper amplification so that she can learn to hear, develop speech and have the opportunity to go to a public school as there are few schools for the deaf. We believe that only through education can you break the cycle of poverty. For past 15 years, Solar Ear ( www.solarear.org) manufactured rechargeable hearing aids by people who are deaf for people with a hearing loss in developing countries. A few years ago we realized that even if we manufactured 2 million hearing aids we would not be solving the problem of hearing loss, now estimated by the WHO to be 624 million people. We then talked to experts in the hearing space asking them what would solve the problem? What would be required to actually lower hearing loss? Depending on who we talked to, the answer was through Detection, Research, Education, Equipment or Therapy. ( DREET) We then looked at who had the best practice in each of the above components and implemented it at Solar Ear in Brazil. We then realized that we could not have the world come to the Solar Ear DREET center in Sao Paulo, Botswana, or China. So we decided the best way to socialize and democratize the process was to have an Android phone become the DREET center. The new mobile DRRET program was then chosen by Ashoka as one of the 5 Ashoka programs which they felt could " Spread Impact, and a System Change" For 5 months we worked with professional mentors, from McKinsey Consulting, Philips Foundation as well as with MIT's MBA Sloan Business School Our program is the only one on the market to start with babies !!!! The Solar Ear apps program is perfect for 3+ years. Children must be screened as babies and then again before entering school as 80%of hearing loss occurs after birth. This app costs $1.40 to a consumer. Revenue to be shared between MFI, Micro-entrepreneur, Google Play and Solar Ear. As you can see from the video, it is a language-neutral test, so minimum training is required. As you will see in the business plan the investment to start to screen and detect is at price of $1.40, while all other companies require the purchase of hardware and software starting at $1,000 and going up to $40,000( plus the risk of getting their equipment through customs in developing countries) Our free maternal hearing health education app will help lower hearing loss by 50% as our goal is to lower hearing loss, not sell more hearing aids.